Hello wonderful community! I have been lurking around for a long time and recently joined so i could actively take part in the discussion!!!
I am so freaking happy to see what people have been doing since i last explored small powered bikes.

(THE BACK STORY)
I fell in love with small vespas/motorbikes/motorbicycles when i had the chance to visit south Italy. Every one was zipping around on little motor bikes. But what caught my eye was these small gas bicycles that had pedals and small cc 2 stroke. I was so inspired i ended up building my little bmx bike into a motorbike with my dad's old weed whacker. I would zip around my neighborhood "wheeeeeeeeeeeee.... weheee wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" HAHA

But electric has come so far since then i can finally take part! I am way into electric, i built robots in grade school. i have a small 30W solar setup installed on the trunk of my car right now.

(THE GUTS)
I am building a commuter e bike. I have a Bafang BBSHD, 48v Panasonic GA 13.5AH 13S4P Battery, on a 2003' (i think) Trek Fuel Full Suspension Mountain Bike. My hope is too effectively replace my car as my daily commuter. it's 19 Miles ONE WAY. I can charge the battery at work for a minimum of 6 Hours, usually 8 or 9. As time goes on i will build another battery, and get a beefed up controller.
I also want to install bright motorcycle lights because the 6 mile stretch nearest the city has terrible traffic in the morning, and the is no alternate route. I live outside Asheville NC and work in the city. Western North Carolina, this is mountain roads, many narrow, long, steep hills, both ways, all ways. always!

Stay tuned i've already written too much. I will try to figure out how to post pics or videos i have of the current setup.
Thanks for Being,
Mündawg

Last edited by Mündawg on Nov 01, 2016 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You have built an excellent ebike, it should work just fine for your use.

I ride a GA cell, 13s4p battery, from Luna. Maximum distance so far is 25.1 miles. The battery was charged to 4.3 volts/cell, 55.9v before the ride, and was at 50.8v at the end of the ride, 3.9v/cell. This ride averaged about 11.4 mph, on a bike path, with little climbing, and with easy pedaling. This was on a rigid bike, with 26"x1.5" tires, inflated to about 55 psi. I'm 70 years old and ride at "looking for deer" speeds, a younger guy, with more pedaling effort, should have higher speed and should have plenty of battery for a 19 mile ride.

My lights are not powered by the ebike battery. I use a rechargeable Cygolite Metro headlight and rechargeable Cygolite Hotshot taillight. Both are in bright-blink mode and had plenty of battery for the 25.1 mile, 2 hour, 12 minutes of ride time, ride. Both lights are LED, the headlight is bright enough for other bikes and drivers to see, in bright-blink mode, but may not have enough battery and be bright enough for continuous-on road illumination, at faster speeds.

Hope this information helps.

Please keep us informed on your progress and adventures.

Mike S

PS, I ride Rolf wheels on my road bike, it has ridden San Antonio to Corpus Christi and SA to Austin a few times, no problems at all.

Looks like you are all set. Your battery will be a tad small for that distance, but only on the severe days. Severe will be when the temp is below 50 degrees, and the wind is in your face the whole ride. On cold days, your battery will not deliver the same capacity as when it's hot. On such a day, you will have to slow down some to make it. On a fine summer day, you should just make it riding around 25 mph the whole way.

One thing you really should have for a serious commute. A cycle analyst, or at least some form of less expensive watt meter. You need to be able to know to the watt hour what your use is halfway. If its the bad day, you need to start riding slower by then, or risk pedaling motor less the last mile or two. The CA is ideal, because it gives you a running average of your watthours per mile. You will learn what number will get you there, and what number won't. So you can just watch that and know when to slow enough to get that number up to making it. Ride full speed that 6 miles, but consider riding more like 18-20 mph on some of the other parts of the trip.

A CA or other wattmeter is also a great tool for increasing your range. It will help you learn to ride more efficiently. You need that feedback to learn how.

For your distance, for the battery to be big enough every day, even the bad cold day three years down the road when the battery has lost capacity, a 48v 20 ah would be ideal. For a decent reserve for commutes, a rule of thumb of 1 ah per mile is a good starting point.

FWIW,, I did a 15 mile one way commute for 5 years. My ride home took a bit more than yours will, I had uphill home all the way. Most days that ride home full speed took 13 ah. for 15 miles. But the same 15 ah pack could get me 40 miles if I slowed from 25 mph to 15.

You could add a second, 7 or 8ah battery later, and parallel them to get a big reserve. Or carry a small lipo pack as a spare tank. But for now, you are all set. Once you learn how to ride to make it, your battery should be big enough for the first year, while it's still new and perky.

Once you wear down those street tires, try some beach cruiser tires. The knobbies have a very soft compound, so replacing them every 500 miles or so would get expensive.

Thanks dogman dan and mikeSSS for weighing in.
As for the battery. I know that the 13.5 will barely cut it. In fact i don't think it will. The whole commute is big hills, i will try to figure out the percent grade for given sections but that will take some time. This battery is for going to the grocery store and the coffee shop etc, which are all over and beyond steep hills. I am in the process of saving up for some high quality 18650 cells, i have done a lot of math and designing the physical setup. I am building a battery hold for the frame. I think i can fit 100 cells in the triangle pack. I want to do 52v 14s7p. I have read that the BBSHD can easily handle 52v and high amps, the 7P pack will be able to deliver at least 70A continuous if i go with more Panasonic GA, but i am also looking into other cells i have a running list going It should be around 20Ah no matter which cells i end up using.

(QUESTION)
I want to use this 9 speed shifter that came with the bike but then i wont have motor cutoff on rear brakes. What are the work arounds? Besides getting a separate friction shifter or something. What have you all used? Pros? Cons?
I expect to be able to use at least 4 speeds out of the 9, with a clean chain line.

Mounts to existing brake lever assembly. Uses magnet to make/break circuit based on proximity, which changes when you pull brake lever. Sometimes takes some fiddling to get it mounted right, but works fine to keep your stock brake lever.

Mounts to existing brake lever assembly. Uses magnet to make/break circuit based on proximity, which changes when you pull brake lever. Sometimes takes some fiddling to get it mounted right, but works fine to keep your stock brake lever.

Thanks i have seen similar to that before. Kind of seems finicky. I'll have to look up how to make it secure and attractive.

No brake lever cutoffs on my bike, but it is throttle only. So far no problems.

Half grip twist throttles can have the non twist grip, the outboard grip, slide inward and contact the inner twist grip, causing friction in the twist grips rotation. When this happens, the inner twist grip can fail to close, under its own spring tension, thus the throttle can stick in the on position. Got to be careful of this, especially if the outer grip gets pushed on.

Agree with Dogman Dan, the left brake lever cutoff would be nice to have.

A couple weeks ago, I rode a Trek Lift +, it is a mid drive, with 1 x 10 gearing. One chain ring in the front, ten speed cassette on the rear. It did seem to have some chain line problems when shifting. When in gear, it had no problems. My chain line problems seem to be with rubbing the front derailleur cage, when cross chained, as in big ring and big cog at the same time. Probably, you can use all 9 speeds, but perhaps not. With no front derailleur, you will not have front derailleur trimming problems.

The big battery that you plan to build, should get the job done, with energy to spare.

Keep us posted. I'd really like to know how the first battery handles climbing, what range it has, in your type of riding, etc.

I am a little bit shocked by the amount of energy you need to run a BBSHD.

I also want to build a bike with it and use my Specialized Stumpjumper FST(Full Suspension 140mm), but i would need a bigger battery.

At the moment I ride a Cube Hybrid Stereo SL 120 29" (fully 120mm). It has the Bosch Middrive and a 11Ah@36V Battery(400Wh).
The way you will get it, is good for 80km if you ride it fast, they say >140km would be possible, but I never used such little assistance(50 and 87miles).
If you remove the 25kmh limit, which is very simple, then you can go 35miles/h with hard pedaling, but I ride like 28miles/h, that speed can be hold without starting sweating.
I can go 22miles this way...meaning 18wh/mile. Recharging time is 2h for 80% and 3,5h for a full charge. My last bike with the same 2015 Bosch drive had 6500km after 1 year, I could still ride the same route ending with the same amount of energy left.

I ride a GA cell, 13s4p battery, from Luna. Maximum distance so far is 25.1 miles.

This are 672wh for 25miles ...27wh/mile...Thanks for this info, then I would need the 52V battery for sure.

Look for Schwalbe Big Apple tires, they are as big as MTB tires, but made for street riding. They are very fast and quiet. I have the 29x2.35" version and they are made bulletproof. I rode 2500km until now with not a single flat tire(with tubes).
If you don't need so wide tires then I would always take the schwalbe marathon supreme agaien. they are 28/29 x 2.0",(of course 26" is also available) fastest tire I rode, and 6500km without flat and they were still good for another 10000km, but the bike was stolen

I did not know that there are Rohloff rims, I have a rohloff 14gear hub(IGH) and want to use it with the Stumpjumper build

When I talk about commute battery requirements,, I'm pretty much assuming the worst case scenarios.

Fast as possible,, up to 30 mph. That eats a battery alive. And even with a mid drive, the cadence at full boogie might be so fast that all the riders pedaling is just legs flapping, trying to keep up with the motor cadence. If he can pedal a cadence that keeps up, it still could be only 10% of the power comes from pedaling. Then adding a reserve for that worst possible day when it's cold and the wind is against you, 1 ah per mile. Its NOT what you will need every day at all. But it is what you will need when your battery is 3+ years old.

If he rides more like 18mph/ 30 kph, then his range will double, or close to it. His pedaling effort will be able to actually help, providing as much as 35% of the wattage used to go that speed. This may sound slow, but it's actually quite a bit faster than most people will average on a pedal ride. At this speed, he can count on getting very close to 2 miles from one ah of 48v.

This means his existing battery will be more than big enough, if he keeps it under 18 mph/30 kph. 20 miles from that battery should be pretty easy. Assume 12 ah really usable, At least 550 wh. He can ride at 27 watt hours per mile and get 20 miles from that pack for sure. That should allow 20 mph travel, or more if he's a really strong pedaler. On the worst day, he'd have to aim for more like 20wh/mi, because on the worst day his pack will get smaller from the cold.

The hills won't matter too much, if he goes up them and down them in the same ride. You get that free ride back down. My commute, to get home I had 15 miles all uphill. So many times I needed every bit of 1 ah of 48v per mile to get home. I nearly always got home empty or nearly there with the hill against me all the way home. Riding to work, I barely used any battery. I'd get 3 miles per ah riding to work.

Bottom line,, slow down and pedal, you can make your battery go as far as you like. Really slow, your pedaling can be 75% of the energy used. But if you travel 25 mph or more, expect it to eat your battery up. Lots of wind drag at higher speeds.

I have a BBS02 with Luna 52V (14s), 10 a/h battery and have ridden it 18 miles (9 up, 9 down, 180 pound rider, socal so no wind) off road with 3000'+ elevation gain so your battery should be adequate on good days. Also, I use 11-17-28 on an 8-speed cassette and have enough gears for all my needs. BTW, those are Rolf wheels and the "whatever" derailleur is Shimano XTR, top of the line.

2old wrote:I have a BBS02 with Luna 52V (14s), 10 a/h battery and have ridden it 18 miles (9 up, 9 down, 180 pound rider, socal so no wind) off road with 3000'+ elevation gain so your battery should be adequate on good days. Also, I use 11-17-28 on an 8-speed cassette and have enough gears for all my needs. BTW, those are Rolf wheels and the "whatever" derailleur is Shimano XTR, top of the line.

Yes you are right the rim is ROLF, haha i forgot to edit that in the original post i had been doing lots of research into IGH and Rholloff was on my mind so i wrote that i will edit OP in a sec..

Good to hear about he shimano XTR only problem is i tried to run a cable thru it and the tiny hole is blocked by something so no gears for now.. I will have to trouble shoot i tried to fix it last night with no luck i got frustrated and had to walk away from the bike. I assumed it was high end i bought the bike used on craigslist i am not a mountain biker at all. I was a fixie rider for 4 years when i lived in Savannah GA. The guy i got the bike from was chill and i trusted him but i really went into the deal with little mtn bike exp.

dogman dan wrote:
This means his existing battery will be more than big enough, if he keeps it under 18 mph/30 kph. 20 miles from that battery should be pretty easy. Assume 12 ah really usable, At least 550 wh. He can ride at 27 watt hours per mile and get 20 miles from that pack for sure. That should allow 20 mph travel, or more if he's a really strong pedaler. On the worst day, he'd have to aim for more like 20wh/mi, because on the worst day his pack will get smaller from the cold.

Thanks a lot for the breakdown that really helps me gauge riding. I am getting a watt meter that i plan to install soon. My goal is to average 20-22 mph for the trip. If i average 22mph i think it will take me around an hour, give or take 10 mintues for wind, lights, traffic, weather etc... Weirdly, driving in a car, "averaging" the legal MPH in all zones, which is a city highway, and interstate, and the city roads to end, should take 26 minutes. And indeed it does, when there is not another car on the road. BUT WITH TRAFFIC!!! If you take the interstate, it's around 47 minutes! Almost 2x as long. You can take the city highway all the way and avoid the interstate but again with traffic it still takes 35-40 minutes and there's always delays and cops. I know that's not long for some commuters but i can't bare it any longer. Not only from boredom's perspective but also because of my deep hatred of fossil fuels, and my dependency on them.

I'd rather ride an ebike for an hour than sit in my car for 40 minutes!!! So that's my goal, a 50% increase in travel time, and a drastic reduction of boredom and fossil fuel consumption.

Success!!! I managed to remove the broken piece (i don't know what to call it so i'll call it a jig) that prevented the shifter cable from making it through. I dremeled off the plastic casing of the jig that was slipping, and was able to unscrew it. It was all seized up in there. Something i've noticed from working on this bike for 3 weeks is that everything is seized up, everything.

You can see that absolutely no light was passing through the hole.

Here's a photo of the jig i took off my old dahon folder that i am scraping

And here's a photo of the new jig, with light easily shining through as it should.

I used skateboard bearing SpeedCream i had laying around to lubricate the new jig. It went in a dream. I am very confident about this.

Here's the final product after the cable was tightened and adjusted. The cable is a Jagwire LEX-SL, is that good? All 9 gears work great But with the chain line i am going to use 4,5,6,7,8,9 only. I'll make a tooth count someday. One step at a time!

My battery came when i wasn't home, which i knew would happen. I spent an hour at work trying to contact the UPS people to get them to hold it and basically UPS sucks. Is my conclusion. They are probably going to try again tomorrow when i am not home and they MUST have a 21yro sign for the battery So i don't know when i can get it up and running.

I found a spoke that needs to be replaced when i was fixing the derailer. I don't have a spoke wrench (yet) or spare spokes so i'll drop the wheel off tomorrow hopefully. guh I guess this is what i wanted, a custom sweet commuter bike tailored to me. I just have the patience of a fruit fly
Thanks for being,
Mündawg

FWIW, that is called a barrel nut. When rehabbing a bike, old bikes in a personal junkyard are priceless.

I bet some days, morning in particular, you arrive at work thinking, " aww shucks, the ride is over already". More battery will allow taking the long way on the trip home though.

My commute was 45 min downhill in, so that leg always seemed too short. About 65 min coming home. So 55 min average, for 15 miles. Plenty of stops for lights that killed my average speed. I rode it about 25-27 mph down, but the uphill as slow as 20 mph, and the steeper parts 15 mph . Your time I think, will be more like 65 min average, if you cruise 22 mph.

You are going to come to love it. Work out the safest way to go, any intersection where cars try to kill you daily, has to be avoided somehow.

that jig is a barrel adjuster that allows you to adjust the cable tension, so you can fine tune the derailer action.
XTR is expensive top of the line equipment,. That must be quite a bike to have that type of equipment. Wow.

I do a 19 mile commute, on a 9.5ah battery. I cruise at 25mph, which gets me an average of 20-21mph with stops and all. Takes me 55 minutes. My trick to using a small battery is to use a small controller. the 15amp controller isn't going to put out more than 10 amps continuous, so I have plenty of rante (25+). And if it's windy, and I have a 50mph apparent wind, I'm just in the drops and aero, LOL.

Mündawg wrote:
Hello wonderful community! I have been lurking around for a long time and recently joined so i could actively take part in the
I also want to install bright motorcycle lights because the 6 mile stretch nearest the city has terrible traffic in the morning, and the is no alternate route.
Mündawg

I use a cygolite 800lumen light, and it is PLENTY bright. Sometimes use two (one on the bike, one on the helmet), and that is as much light as a car/motorcycle headlight.

Hey folks thanks for the input. I finally managed to get a hold of the UPS truck driver and i met him in the parking lot of family dollar at 8pm tonight. Kinda sketchy but i don't care i have a battery now!!! The Luna Cycles bottle battery does not fit in my frame so i will have to figure out another mounting solution which i am bummed about.

This is the tires that were on the bike when i bought it. I purchased some smooth tread 1.5 wide commuter tires and new presta tubes.

This is the spoke on the rear wheel that i needed to replace. As you can see the nipple was destroyed. I picked up a couple spokes and spoke wrench. Unfortunately this wheel has some plastic insert instead of rim tape covering the nipples. So i had to drill a hole over the nipple to remove it. Not ideal but not a big deal, it worked fine.

I placed a couple pieces of duct tape over the hole i made before i put the new tire on. I hope this works

It works!!! i charged up the battery enough to give it a little test ride. This thing zips along super fast! I thought i was going to be a throttle only kind of guy, but i really enjoyed the PAS function. The onset of power is really abrupt but i will change that when my programming cable arrives in the mail.

Tomorrow i will do a proper test ride with a laser thermometer. I am so freaking excited!!!
Thanks for being,
Mündawg

When doing a home made rim tape job/repair,
I was told by a wheel builder that you can go to the local store , that sells the Packing tape that has threads in it and is very thick and strong. You do have to cut it down to the proper width for your rim though.

If you find that you have continuous problems with those rims that are light, made for cross country racing, ( Your bike now weighs much more ) you can get a strong wheel from Performance Bike, I had a Forte Terramax for years on a mountain bike and it held up to
all kinds dirt riding/rock and root gardens.

ScooterMan101 wrote:When doing a home made rim tape job/repair,
I was told by a wheel builder that you can go to the local store , that sells the Packing tape that has threads in it and is very thick and strong. You do have to cut it down to the proper width for your rim though.

If you find that you have continuous problems with those rims that are light, made for cross country racing, ( Your bike now weighs much more ) you can get a strong wheel from Performance Bike, I had a Forte Terramax for years on a mountain bike and it held up to
all kinds dirt riding/rock and root gardens.

Re efficiency,, you simply cannot compare efficiency when one ride is in one place, with one rider, and another is in another place with a different rider.

You have to narrow it down to just one variable, including the gear ratio used. That means same battery and same controller. I'm not saying it's not obvious which one has lower power, or lends itself better to lower power riding, or which obviously goes farther on x ah. That's not the same as efficiency. It may very well just be pedaling harder, or one battery delivers more than another, when both are rated same ah.

I'm saying, I betcha both motors have very similar efficiency, when run at 90% of no load rpm. But one system may tend to run at 60% of no load rpm, and the other at 75%,, in the same gear and same speed. That could result in a big difference in efficiency at that rpm.

It just takes a hell of a lot of very carefully crafted testing, repeated many times, to make that kind of statements about efficiency, or even just simply the range.

You gotta get down to a one variable experiment, and repeat it. Otherwise you are just doing junk science. Even the weather has to be identical, so just time of day can monkey wrench your experiment.

Get them to send me shit for testing. I'd love to have a new bosch mid drive bike, and a bafang, and a shimano steps too for comparative testing to destruction.

What I learned about hub motors came from similar testing of stuff I had, which I ran on the same battery and same amps controllers. I was really quite amazed to find motor efficiency almost identical when you only tested cruise speed on nearly flat ground. My test route was a 5 mile square, so only 4 stops per 20 miles, and in all wind directions each circuit. Geared motors no more efficient than DD.

But take the test to the city, stop and go, and the better efficiency leaving the stop sign of the geared motor was as much as 20% better! Wow.

But compare mid drives, and it should be near identical, since it will be possible to get that gear advantage on both systems. So city or open road, they should use the same wattage with extremely similar efficiency. If one has more power, then of course it could be ridden so you used more power each start up. But if the actual amps limit of the controllers are identical, they would ride very close to the same wh/mi, when ridden the same.

Riding both with a watt meter would allow riding both the same, even if the amps was different. You'd use the watt meter to find the power settings that make them closest to equal.

Battery will not make the journey. I have tested it thrice. A 14 Mile commute, PAS 2, good throttle and HEAVY pedaling. Was at the end, low voltage was threatening me. Then the ride back 14 miles, PAS 1/2, barely any throttle, HEAVY pedaling, made it back with <25%.
Then today, 14 mile, 7 one way 7 back. Front 7; PAS 1 lots of pedaling, little throttle. Back 7; PAS 2 little pedaling lots of throttle. Low voltage cutoff like 20 yards from my house. The last mile or two i had to ease off and use PAS 1 and lots of pedaling to make it last up my hill.

I do not think this will make it the 20 miles i need it too. Not without exhausting myself. Like maybe PAS 1 Little to no throttle, and lots of pedaling. I don't want to get to work sweaty and exhausted since i have to work on my feet all day and that's terrible. I am really bummed about this battery pack. I really thought the Panasonic GA cells would perform a little better.

Does anyone else have this exact pack from luna cycles? Can you comment if you do or if you use Panasonic GA cells. I am thinking the claim that 13.5Ah is for 2A draw is scarily accurate. The only way i could make it work is if i use around 8A continuous. Which is barely helping.

I will post some updated pics tomorrow i got a new back wheel and put different handlebars on. Also got some lights and a full face helmet.